Child disability complex behaviour support

Children and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) are made up of specialist teams offering assessment and treatment to children and young people up to age 18 who have emotional, behavioural or mental health problems.

We work with children and young people aged 4-18 who experience emotional, communication, and behavioural problems. This can include showing behaviours which indicate that the young person/child is struggling with the experiences they encounter on a day-to-day basis. Often these feelings can be expressed through behaviours which can be difficult to manage and may be causing worry or harm to either themselves or others.

Network consultations are used for in-depth discussion about a young person with their parent/carer and the network of staff that support them in other settings. This is likely to include their social worker, class teacher, and other care staff e.g. personal assistant and short breaks key worker. During these meetings we will explore the behaviours identified for discussion and think together about how to best support the young person. We aim to come to a shared understanding of the difficulties that the young person is facing and formulate recommendations and action points to enable the situation to move forward.

The consultation sessions will last for approximately 90 minutes and a report will follow the meeting, outlining the themes of the discussion and any agreed action point.

Direct case work

Direct case work is offered to young people who have behaviours which are described as complex and challenging in a range of settings. The team can work more intensively with a young person, their family, and network in order to develop, support, and review new ways of working that address the difficulties that the young person is experiencing. This is likely to include meeting the young person in the settings that they access and working closely and collaboratively with their family and other professionals involved in their care.

Information discussed within sessions is treated as confidential. However, if we are concerned about the safety of a young person or another, we will share this information with other professionals as part of the Child Protection and Safeguarding Policy. If this is the case we will always try to inform those involved of what we are doing.

We welcome your feedback of your experience of the service you have received. You can do this in a number of ways. At the end of a piece of work you will be asked to fill in a questionnaire and your therapist will also ask you for your views about your experience. In our waiting area at Shoreham we also have feedback postcards for you to fill in. We value your thoughts on what works, what doesn't work and what would work better.